Myhelan Film Festival a hit

The 2002 Myhelan Indie (Independent) Film Festival once again
drew films from all over the U.S. and from nine foreign countries
to Hackettstown for its annual three-day event held from March 1
through March 3.

For the forth consecutive year, the Mall Theater, Hackettstown,
hosted Myhelan's festival which screened more than 60 films and
offered workshops in screenwriting, producing and making films in
New Jersey.

Sixteen directors and producers flew in for the event.
Filmmakers participated in workshops, and broke into informal
question and answer sessions with audiences following the screening
of their films.

"Our festival is about bringing great films together with an
audience that otherwise wouldn't have access to them," said Linda
Helm Krapf, Myhelan's executive director. Krapf noted the mission
of this film festival is to be supportive of new and emerging
filmmakers.

Myhelan's festival kicked off with an all-day Film Symposium,
attended this year by 400 high school film and journalism students
from nine high schools in Morris, Warren, Hunterdon and Somerset
counties. Teens spent the day in the theater screening films,
meeting filmmakers and attending workshops.

"The Directors' Workshop with John Houston was a tremendous
encounter," said Randolph High School Mass Media Teacher Robert
Finning.

Houston, a Canadian documentary film writer/director brought the
second in his Arctic trilogy, Nuliajuk: Mother of the Sea Beast to
the event. Finning said that giving teens a chance to interact with
"a professional in the film industry who is working on both
independent and studio films is an experience that doesn't come
around often for these students."

Houston is also known

for his work on productions like Disney's Never Cry Wolf, and
Fly Away Home.

Jung (War): In the Land of the Mujaheddin, winner of the 2001
Human Rights Watch International Film Festival's Nestor Almendros
Prize screened to a packed auditorium on Saturday evening. Another
feature film was Academy Award nominee Himalaya. Hypnotic panoramas
and wide frames of grand landscapes in the snow covered Dolpa
region of Nepal provided an epic setting for survival in a sparsely
populated mountain village.

The Next Big Thing closed out the evening on Saturday. Audiences
easily recognized several of the lead actors in this story about a
young painter who finds success and true love only after creating a
false identity in this lighthearted satire of the art world. Chris
Eigeman of the TV sitcom, It's Like, You Know…" plays the role of
New York artist Gus Bishop, and his love interest Connie, is played
by Kate Crowley of The Brothers McMullen, Spin City, and most
recently, The West Wing.

Sunday's crowd witnessed the screening of two films that just
won awards at this year's Sundance Film Festival in Park City,
Utah. Daughter From Danang walked away with the coveted Grand Jury
Prize for best documentary. It's the story of a Vietnamese mother
and her American daughter are reunited in Vietnam after a 22-year
separation. Their hopes for a joyful reunion are quickly shattered
as the harsh reality of cultural differences and the years of
separation take their toll.

Short film Jigsaw Venus by California filmmaker Dean Kapasalis,
won an Honorable Mention at Sundance. Venus is one of 24 short
films that were screened at the festival.

Myhelan's event has never put too much emphasis on awards.
Festival-goers were asked to vote for their choice of favorite full
length or documentary film. A home-grown film by New Jersey
producer Andrea Stein of Asbury Park, and director Doug Bollinger
of Clark, got two thumbs up from the audience, receiving the
Myhelan Viewer's Choice Award for their film Just Lovers.

The only other award went to Randolph High senior, Paul Basile
who submitted his short film, Universal Moments into Myhelan's
Youth Film and Video Expo. Twenty-nine New Jersey teens entered the
expo this year. Basile was selected as the winner of the Myhelan
Young Filmmaker Award, which was juried by a panel of professional
directors and producers from the Festival. The award, sponsored by
Hackettstown Community Hospital, came with a check to Basile for
$200.

The Myhelan Indie Film Festival is a program of the Myhelan
Cultural Arts Center. The center, located at 18 Schooley's Mountain
Road in Long Valley, hosts gallery exhibitions, art and music
classes for adults and children, a monthly concert series as well
as summer programs for children.

For more information, visit Myhelan's website at www.myhelan.org
or call (908) 876-5959.

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